Lung cancer pioneer "was on chemical firms' payroll" (8/12/2006)

EXTRACT: In 1985, Doll wrote to the judge of an Australian Royal Commission, investigating claims of veterans who had developed cancer following exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam, in strong support of the defence claims of its major manufacturer, Monsanto.

He stated that, "TCDD (dioxin), which has been postulated to be a dangerous contaminant of the herbicide, is at the most, only weakly and inconsistently carcinogenic in animal experiments".

In fact, dioxin is the most potent known tested carcinogen, apart from confirmatory epidemiological evidence. Doll's defense, resulting in denial of the veterans' claims, was publicized by Monsanto in full-page advertisements in worldwide major newspapers.

Injurywatch has established payments of $1000 a day (increased to $1500 a day in 1986) were made by Monsanto to Doll for more than thirty years.
---

Lung cancer pioneer 'was on chemical firms' payroll'
By Helen McCormack
The Independent, 08 December 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2055641.ece

A renowned British scientist who established that smoking causes lung cancer was on the payroll of a chemical company while investigating cancer risks, it was reported last night.

Sir Richard Doll, who died last year aged 92, was said to have received a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day during the mid 1980s from the chemicals firm Monsanto, which is now associated with GM crops.

Doll, an epidemiologist, also received payments from the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the companies Dow Chemicals and ICI, The Guardian reported. It said the three organisations paid him £15,000 to assess the potential dangers of vinyl chloride, used in plastics.

Doll largely cleared the chemical industry of having links with cancer, a conclusion which goes against the World Health Organisation's assessment. The association is said to have used the review to defend its members' use of vinyl chloride.

While on Monsanto's payroll, it is claimed Doll wrote to a government-appointed commission in Australia investigating the potential for Agent Orange to cause cancer. He said there was no evidence the agent, manufactured by Monsanto and used during the Vietnam war, caused cancer.

Doll pioneered the argument that cancer is caused by smoking, a view contested by environmentalists who point to the dangers of pollution.

His work was funded by Cancer Research UK. Its medical director, Professor John Toy, said that Doll had been working in a different era when it was "not automatic for potential conflicts of interest to be declared in scientific papers."
---

Anti-smoking cancer-link Oxford academic Sir Richard Doll secretly had a severe asbestos and chemical industry payment habit from Injurywatch - compensation and injury claims specialists in the UK
by Rory O'Neill and Conrad Murray - last modified 08-12-2006 07:01
http://www.injurywatch.co.uk/news-and-groups/news/workplace-illness/exposed-workplace-cancer-naysayer-was-secretly-being-paid-by-drug-companies-231161138/

Involved, or know something we don't? Call us FREE on 0800 066 99 07 to tell us more about this story...

injurywatch has found a series of secret payments from environmental polluters to the leading Oxford University cancer researcher Sir Richard Doll may have compromised his integrity. By shaping the epidemiological evidence to fit the requirements of his paymasters and failing to stimulate adequate health warnings, Doll's paid-for "evidence" may have protected his proven paymasters in the chemical and asbestos industries and led to the premature deaths of millions of people worldwide.

evidental documents are available FREE on this story call 07918 167405 for details.

Cancer research hero Sir Richard Doll was lauded for being instrumental in discovering the connection between smoking and lung cancer. With a knighthood, an Oxford University building devoted to cancer research named after him within his lifetime, freedom of the city of Oxford, a seemingly unassailable reputation and international awards falling to him much as apples fall from trees, Doll dominated the UK cancer epidemiology scene for more than 50 years.

But two scientific papers, "The Causes of Cancer: Quantitative Estimates of Avoidable Risks of Cancer in the United States Today," (Journal of the National Cancer Institute 66 (1981) which he wrote with Professor Richard Peto and Effects of exposure to vinyl chloride. An assessment of the evidence. Scand J Work Environ Health 14(2):61-78. Doll R. 1988. which he wrote alone have long been regarded by leading scientists in Sir Richard Doll's field of using skewed evidence which massively underplay the risks and using parameters which are obviously wrong.

Perversely the 1981 US study which was supposed to cover all environmental and work-related cancers, Doll specifically excluded African Americans and anyone aged over 60 from the statistics when the incidence is known to be higher among, manual workers, the poor and the old.

In Doll's 1998 study into vinyl chloride the same policy was followed: Older workers (with heavy exposure) and plants regarded as particularly dangerous were excluded, while young workers (with little/no exposure) were included with the effect of downplaying the risk.

Now documents obtained by injurywatch from Doll's personal archive reveal that Doll personally, and Green College, the Oxford college he founded and where he installed his wife as warden, were receiving substantial payments from both Turner and Newall, the notorious asbestos company, Monsanto the American chemicals giant, and from the industry body, the Chemical Manufacturers Association.

Specifically we can show:

*payments of £50,000 to Doll's Green College from Turner and Newall, the asbestos company *a thirty year financial relationship between Turner and Newall and Sir Richard Doll *payments of between £12,000 and £15,000 to Sir Richard Doll from the Chemical Manufacturers' Association *from 1976 to 2002 (and possibly later) payments to Sir Richard Doll of between $1000 (increasing to $1500 a day in 1986) from Monsanto

Asbestos scandal

Sir Richard Doll: the industry man: A consistent history of publicity and payment-induced scientific perversionIn 1976, in spite of well-documented concerns on the risks of fluoridation of drinking water with industrial wastes, Doll declared that it was "unethical" not to do so.

In his 1981 report on causes of cancer mortality in the U.S, in the absence of any scientific evidence, Doll trivialized the role of environmental and occupational causes of cancer. He claimed that occupation was responsible for 4% of mortality rather than at least 20%, as previously admitted by consultants to the American Industrial Health Council of the Chemical Manufacturer's Association.

In 1982, as a longstanding consultant to Turner & Newall (T&N), the leading U.K. asbestos corporation, Doll gave a speech to workers at one of their largest plants. This speech was in response to a TV exposé that forced the Government to reduce occupational exposure limits to an allegedly low level (1f/cc). Doll reassured the workers that the new exposure limit would reduce their lifetime risk of dying from cancer to "a pretty outside chance" of 1 in 40 (2.5%). This, however, is an extremely high risk. Doll also declined to testify on behalf of dying plaintiffs or their bereaved families in civil litigation against asbestos industries. Furthermore, Doll filed a sworn statement in U.S. courts in support of T & N

In 1983, in support of U.S. and U.K. petrochemical companies, Doll claimed that lead in petroleum vehicle exhaust was not correlated with increased blood lead levels and learning disabilities in children. Doll's research had been generously funded by General Motors.

In 1985, The U.K. Society for the Prevention of Asbestos and Industrial Disease (SPAID) criticized Doll for manipulating scientific information in order to assure us that only 1/100,000 people working in an office containing undamaged asbestos risked disease and death.

In 1985, Doll wrote to the judge of an Australian Royal Commission, investigating claims of veterans who had developed cancer following exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam, in strong support of the defence claims of its major manufacturer, Monsanto. He stated that, "TCDD (dioxin), which has been postulated to be a dangerous contaminant of the herbicide, is at the most, only weakly and inconsistently carcinogenic in animal experiments". In fact, dioxin is the most potent known tested carcinogen, apart from confirmatory epidemiological evidence. Doll's defense, resulting in denial of the veterans' claims, was publicized by Monsanto in full-page advertisements in worldwide major newspapers. Injurywatch has established payments of $1000 a day (increased to $1500 a day in 1986) were made by Monsanto to Doll for more than thirty years.

In 1987, Doll dismissed evidence of childhood leukemia clusters near 15 U.K. nuclear power plants. Faced with evidence of a 21% excess of lymphoid leukemia in children and young adults living within ten miles of these plants, Doll advanced the novel hypothesis that "over clean" homes of nuclear workers rendered their children susceptible to unidentified leukemia viruses.

In 1988, Doll claimed that the excess mortality from leukemia and multiple myeloma among serviceman exposed to radiation from atom bomb tests was a "statistical quirk". Doll revisited this study in 1993 and eliminated the majority of cases which developed within two years of exposure, claiming that such short latency disproved any possible causal relation.

In a 1988 review, on behalf of the U.S. Chemical Manufacturer's Association, Doll claimed that there was no significant evidence relating occupational exposure to vinyl chloride and brain cancer (62). However, this claim was based on an aggregation of several studies, in some of which the evidence for such association was statistically significant.

In a 1992 letter to a major U.K. newspaper, Doll pleaded the public to trust industry and scientists and to ignore warnings by the "large and powerful anti-science mafia" of risks from dietary residues of carcinogenic pesticides.

In a January 2000 deposition, Doll admitted to donations from the chemical industry to Green College, Oxford, where he had been the presidential "Warden". He also admitted that the largest "charitable" donation (£50,000) came from Turner & Newall, U.K.'s leading asbestos multinational corporation, "in recognition of all the work I had done for them."Documents obtained by injurywatch document a single payment from Turner and Newall to Green College of £50,000. Other documents show Doll enjoyed a personal financial relationship with Turner and Newall which lasted more than thirty years.

In 1982, following a television exposé which laid bare the dangers of asbestos, Doll was wheeled out by T&N at factory meetings with workers across the UK to reassure their staff that their asbestos exposure danger was what he termed "a pretty outside chance."

In fact using Turner and Newall/Doll's own figures at the time, the cancer risk incidence was 1 in 40 (2.5%) which is very high. But now the incidence has been shown to be much higher. In the UK, between 1900 and 2000 people die each year from mesothlioma, a cancer solely caused by exposure to asbestos fibre. The figure is doubled by other lung cancer deaths caused by asbestos. The annual incidence is expected to escalate with the yearly death rate rising until at least 2012.

Perhaps because of his financial relationship with Turner and Newall, Doll consistently refused to testify on behalf of dying asbestos plaintiffs or their bereaved families in civil litigation against asbestos industries and indeed filed a sworn statement in U.S. courts in support of T & N.

Indeed Doll expressed that the £50,000 payment was in "gratitude from Turner and Newall for work I had undertaken on their behalf."

A year after Sir Richard Doll's death and only after a five year delay in which many potential claimants died, a settlement was agreed on thousands of Turner and Newall claims earlier in 2006. Many people with a valid claim against the company will recieve as little as 10-20p in the pound.

MonsantoFurthermore injurywatch has discovered that Sir Richard Doll was receiving $1000 a day from US chemical giant Monsanto from 1976 which was increased to $1500 a day (£1000 a day at the then exchange rates) in 1986. Other documents reveal that Doll was paid this fee by Monsanto until at least 2002.

The Health and Safety Executive still quotes the Doll/Peto 1981 study as the basis for their "current best estimate of the proportion of cancer deaths in Great Britain due to occupational exposures over the last few decades as 4%, with an associated uncertainty range of 2% to 8%1 and only now is work underway to seek to update it.

Doll/Peto was viewed as groundbreaking at the time in that it seemed to prove that environmental and occupational causes of cancer represented only 4% of total cancer mortality, when even consultants to the American Chemical Council (previously known as the Chemical Manufacturer's Association) had admitted that the incidence was probably 20%.

A further Doll article in 1988 Effects of Exposure to Vinyl Chloride, reported that there was no significant risk associated with vinyl chloride other than in the liver. It made no reference to payments he was receiving at the time from the Chemical companies but has since been frequently quoted in industry documentation. According to the ACC in 2001 in reference to the paper: "The world's leading researchers have studied vinyl chloride and brain cancer and concluded that the evidence does not support a link between brain cancer and vinyl chloride." They did not add that the article had been reviewed by Ted Torkelson, medical advisor to Dow and Geoffrey Paddle, another chemical industry funded medic.

"At the time many scientists were suspicious that the reports seemed to be too pro-Industry" says Swedish cancer expert Dr Lennart Hardell ". Many wondered if he had close links with Industry and were concerned with some of his findings. Because his conclusions formed the basis for health and safety guidelines and legislation many people have died unnecessarily in my opinion"

Maybe people like the workers at the Vinatex PVC plant in Derbyshire. A joint venture between US company Conoco and a now defunct British company called Staveley Chemicals Ltd it opened in 1969 and converted Vinyl Chloride Monomer to PVC.

By 1984 when the company went out of business dozens of Vinatex workers exposed to Vinyl Chloride were either dead or dying. While Doll concluded there was no significant risk associated with vinyl chloride the reality was quite different. Research by Trade Unions in Derbyshire estimate that about 40% of the 280 workers at the factory during its fifteen year history are now dead, many from rare forms of cancer.

It is now emerged that the cost of Doll's 1988 review into the effects of Vinyl Chloride had been paid by the Chemical Manufacturers Association, with a significant part of the fee coming from ICI, then the UK's largest vinyl chloride producer.

Significantly both Doll's 1981 research with Peto and his own work in 1988 continues to shape the cancer establishments' view: the now somewhat jaded advertising slogan "Let's cure cancer in the Eighties" was the ultimate embodiment of the Doll legacy which has seen millions of pounds of taxpayers money and charitable donations poured into seeking cancer "cures" when only minimal funding has been spent on raising awareness of the need to prevent environmental and workplace exposure.

Sir Richard Doll was closely connected with both the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Rearch and indeed the two, now merged, have located their Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit (CEU) along side part of the Department of Public Health and the University’s Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) in the Richard Doll Building.

On the basis of Doll/Peto's 4% figure the number of deaths attributable to occupational/environmental cancer in the UK would be around 6,000 - a significant number at double the number of annual deaths on the road and twenty times those killed in workpace accidents. But from the time of the release of the original paper the research appeared low to other researchers in the area.

Doll/Peto admitted their researches were only based on best guesses, noting that it was "impossible to make any precise attempt at the proportion of cancers that are attributable to hazards at work."

Many cancers were missed entirely from their analysis or designated not work-related, including melanoma and breast cancer, the most common cancer among women.

Overall risks to women would be under-estimated because of their relatively late entry to the industrial workforce in large numbers.

Prostate cancer, the most prevalent cancer among men, was only considered a risk for cadmium-exposed workers. Studies have linked prostate cancer to exposure to pesticides, metalworking fluids and other occupational exposures.

The study only included 16 substances or industries thought to be carcinogenic to humans, a small fraction the true number.

The report only considered mortality (deaths) and not morbidity (number of cases), which is a considerably higher figure – in the UK even Doll/Peto’s 4 per cent figure would indicate around 11,000 cases a year.

Excluding cancers in those over 65 years of age drastically top-sliced the number of cancers considered, this measure alone possibly reducing the work cancer toll to less than half the true figure.

Cancers in those working in small industries were excluded.

The analysis excluded African-Americans, a group over-represented in high risk jobs and with higher and increasing cancer rates.

The analysis missed out those with indirect exposures to carcinogens, for example maintenance workers in contact with asbestos. These jobs are now among the highest risk for asbestos cancer in the UK.

The study only considered human evidence – but for some substances and industries in the rapidly expanding job market the studies hadn’t be done, and for many newer exposures and industries conclusive human evidence just wasn’t yet available, but there was strong suggestive evidence from the more readily available toxicological and animal studies. As a result many cancers caused or related to workplace exposures would have switched columns to lifestyle, smoking or other causation categories.

The report acknowledged but failed to account for the interaction of exposures, for example the greatly increased risk of lung cancer in smokers who are also exposed to asbestos. Most cancers are likely to result from a combination of exposures or circumstances.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, thought to be one of the most common work-related cancers, was classified as having only a slight risk association impacting on relatively few workers.


Print

Back to the Archive